Thursday, August 11, 2011

Entertainment One logo (2010)

Based in Toronto, Canada, Entertainment One is an entertainment company which distributes music, films and TV. Last year the company rebranded by changing its name from E1 Entertainment to Entertainment One and introducing a new corporate identity created by the Toronto brand design agency Parcel Design.

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Previous logo.

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The previous rebrand was unveiled just one and a half year before, on January 22, 2009. At that time, the company changed its name from Entertainment One to E1 Entertainment. The corporate divisions were renamed E1 Television, E1 Films, E1 Music and E1 Distribution. The new logo, showing E1 standing on top of a globe, was intended to signify E1's "metamorphosis into a major independent entertainment content owner and distributor". It was developed by Bird Design in Los Angeles, who provided the following explanation:

Even though it's been a leader in the music distribution business since the mid-90s, E1 just got its name a couple years ago. That's when it was consolidated with other holdings by its parent company.

It needed a logo that branded itself as a leader...not just in Canada (its nation of origin) but worldwide. Something, you know, big.

BIRD created a logo that was all that and more. The final version (it went through several internal iterations) is clean, heroic and suggestive of the classic movie studio iconography of the past. In a word, EPIC.

The current identity was launched in mid-2010, as the company started trading on the London Stock Exchange. The name was changed back to Entertainment One (abbreviated eOne). The stated reason for the rebrand was that the company that the previous mark had become limiting. Parcel Design provided the following explanation in a blog post on their website:

Of course, re-branding a global business of eOne’s scope and size requires careful consideration of many factors. The old brand had become limiting in many ways, so we wanted to distill it to a much more simple form that could be easily adapted to various applications today – whether it appears in print ads, online, packaging or theatrical animations. We separated and stacked the ‘e’ and ‘one’ to assist in recognition and recall of the eOne name. The blue box with its combination of rounded and square corners reflects the diversity of eOne’s lines of business, and helps the logo more clearly standout in small applications. The customized rounded typeface reflects the international scope of eOne’s operations and helps with legibility in small and challenging applications – such as DVD spines and black and white newspaper ads.